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Peaches Geldof: Selfish and a bad mother? Or a tragic victim?

Wendy Squires

How could she do it? Especially with her history. What a selfish girl. What a terrible mother.

Chances are you've heard, if not contemplated, these very same thoughts in light of the news that the official cause of Peaches Geldof's death was a heroin overdose, just like her mother Paula Yates some 14 years prior.

You would have seen the pictures of the exceptionally beautiful 25-year-old, witnessed the grief of her devastated father Bob Geldof and husband Tom Cohen, and contemplated her two little sons, Astala and Phaedra (23 months and 11 months old at the time of her death), now motherless.

Another wasted life at the end of a needle, another ripple-effect of grief and anger and regret for those caught in the slipstream of love and loss. Another opportunity, in my mind, to stop and realise that there but for the grace of God go all and lest we forget it for a minute.

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Last week, however, there appeared to be a distinct lack of empathy for Peaches. Had she died of a heart attack as was first suspected, or killed in a car accident, I doubt social media would have been as inundated with tut tuts, shame on hers, and martyr mother attitudes such as those of controversial British columnist Katie Hopkins.

"Peaches' fatal syringe was in a box by the bed – along with some sweets" Hopkins Tweeted sarcastically last week. "She was taking care of her baby son after all." And she continued: "Let's turn the tables. If was me that took an overdose whilst caring for my 11-month-old, would I be a fallen angel too?"

Well, here's what I would like to say to Hopkins and anyone else who believes themselves superior enough to cast the first stone from on high: how about exhibiting some gratitude that you are not suffering from an addiction as Peaches was?

Because here is the truth: no one wants to be an addict. No one wants to leave their two beautiful children motherless and no one wants to die at the age of 25. No prostitute wants to debase herself day in and day out to self-medicate pain.

Do you think smokers dying of emphysema still puffing away outside hospital and hospice doors are happy to be so hopelessly addicted? Do you think junkies enjoy ripping off family members, hiding their addiction like a dirty secret, putting a handbrake on any potential they may have to make a decent life for themselves?

Peaches Geldof sure didn't enjoy it. She had been clean for more than a year, weaning herself slowly off heroin with morphine, before something happened and triggered a fatal relapse. In an interview with the British Spectator shortly before her death, she described heroin as "such a bleak drug". "It always makes me so sad to hear about people like [actor Philip Seymour] Hoffman, who were real masters and also family men who were just wasted by the constant, gnawing obsession with it. All heroin users seem to have the same core internal pain, though. It's a fascinating concept – drug of choice."

British comedian Russell Brand understands this core internal pain first hand. A former heroin addict, he advocates drug addiction be treated as a disease, one that can only be cured by total abstinence. Although, he agrees this is far easier said than done.

"I cannot accurately convey to you the efficiency of heroin in neutralising pain," Brand wrote recently. "It transforms a tight, white fist into a gentle, brown wave. The mentality and behaviour of drug addicts and alcoholics is wholly irrational until you understand that they are completely powerless over their addiction and unless they have structured help they have no hope," he says.

"Without [abstinence-based recovery] fellowships I would still take drugs. Because, even now, the condition persists. Drugs and alcohol are not my problem, reality is my problem. Drugs and alcohol are my solution. I look to drugs and booze to fill up a hole in me; unchecked, the call of the wild is too strong."

Someone else who sees the call of the wild on a daily basis is Paul Dillon, director and founder of Drug and Alcohol Research and Training Australia (darta.net.au).

"To anyone who can't understand why anyone would even start using heroin in the first place, I'd say we all have our line in the sand. For some it's a drink. For some a puff on a joint. That line depends on so many different things," Dillon says.

"Many who use heroin I have interviewed are blocking things out, and these people are the ones likely to get into that cycle of very heavy dependence and addiction. On the other hand, I know people who can use it and are controlled, one day deciding to never use again and they don't.

"When you hear those stories, that's when others go, 'well people who are still using don't have any willpower'. It's like when someone sees a really obese person and says they should just stop eating. Well, it's just not that easy because there are other issues at play."

We all have our problems. And, as we have seen in the wake of Peaches Geldof's death, it's just too damn easy to throw stones at others.

Age columnist Wendy Squires is a journalist, editor and author. Twitter: @Wendy_Squires

37 comments so far

Very weak article .

Commenter

Tip

Location

Top

Date and time

July 28, 2014, 1:40AM

Perhaps ironically, Squires' article is as scattered and chaotic as the lives of the addicts she empathizes with. Regrettably, using the insignificant Peaches Geldoff as an example of a "struggling" addict was more sycophantic than it was arresting and it added naught to an otherwise important opportunity to frame addiction as a health issue. More interesting was to read Russell Brand's comments, including his very lucid description, and recognition, of his own failings. I've never used drugs and made a life choice many years ago to effectively remove alcohol from my life. As the son of an alcoholic, and having a brother who did not fall very far from that tree, there's perhaps a causal link in respect to DNA and addiction, and I agree wholeheartedly with Squires in respect to treating it as a health issue, no differently to cystic fibrosis or any other disorder. Fairly or not though, my sympathy is for those addicts ripping their families off rather than those elevated to faux social levels because papa was a one hit wonder or because mama rose to notoriety as the celebrated squeeze of a rock star. That being said, "like mother, like daughter" would have added some gravitas to the health discussion in this instance.

Commenter

Steve

Location

Sydney

Date and time

July 28, 2014, 3:35AM

I think my disagreement with the addiction=disease comes from being that generally speaking it would also be much harder to sympathise with someone with a debilitating disease if they had intentionally acquired it in the first place.

Commenter

Dazler

Location

Mornington

Date and time

July 28, 2014, 2:01PM

Neither! She was a real person who's death is a tragedy for her and her family.

There is plenty more acceptable topics you could select to chew the fat on e.g. is coal killing the Barrier Reef, etc etc etc.

Commenter

Honestly

Date and time

July 28, 2014, 4:25AM

I think the majority of the backlash in Britain may be attributed to the fact the Peaches Geldof wrote very regularly about and appeared very frequently on television advocating her style of motherhood and "attachment parenting". She was very visible in this regard.

Addiction is a terrible thing, no doubt, but you cannot separate Peaches media role as a parenting advocate from the backlash and attribute that backlash solely to a lack of sympathy for an addict. It's an unedifying response but when you promote yourself as a parental advocate it is perhaps to be anticipated that a response would be couched in terms of how an addiction impacts on your parental capacities and responsibilities.

Commenter

Hoppity

Date and time

July 28, 2014, 7:45AM

Fantastic, compassionate article. Addicts do not start out as addicts. A lot of people become addicts during the risk taking years up until their twenties when the part of the brain that weighs up risk taking is completed. That is why cigarette companies target children. What a lot of people do not understand is the terrible emotional pain experienced when the addict cannot score and is faced with reality. I get annoyed with the war on drugs types is when they tell you about the dangers of illegal drugs and the problems are all caused by illegality. If we could decriminalise most drugs we could free up police resources to fight truly dangerous drugs like Ice that cause psychotic violence and alcohol for the same reason.

Commenter

koalaburger

Location

katoomba

Date and time

July 28, 2014, 4:35AM

Great so make it easier to feed the addict. Unfortunately addiction occurs in all facets of life, from drugs to sugar to tobacco. I think the reason people have less sympathy for addicts is the first choice is theirs. Maybe if she never had come across heroin or any other drug her obvious psychological issues could have been addressed in a different way. The issue we need to deal with is how to stop people getting access to these drugs. Feeding the drug habit is never an option. This is exactly why drug dealers need to be executed. The carnage they create is horrendous.

Commenter

Saf

Date and time

July 28, 2014, 12:02PM

It's such a sad story and refreshing to read a compassionate article about a tragic case. I have never suffered addiction but I am 100% sure it's not a 'choice', or lack of will power. There are no winners in cases like these, I really feel for her husband, dad, sisters and especially her two little babies.

Commenter

Erika

Date and time

July 28, 2014, 4:39AM

No addiction is not a choice but taking it for the first few times is. No one forced her, everyone knows very well the effects drugs have. Playing ignorant is simply not good enough. Many of us have had exposure to drugs and alcohol in one way or another and chose not to go down that path.

Commenter

Markus

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

July 28, 2014, 9:51AM

We're rapidly becoming a society where no one is responsible for anything at all. Here we have a woman who had access to vast amounts of money, was presumably offered access to quality education, not to mention psychological assistance if needed, and still destroys not only her life, but damages her children's lives as well. Another SMH article supports the acquittal of a mother who left her child in her car - the child subsequently died. When do we realise that supporting criminally irresponsible behaviour and excusing it is actually detrimental to our society?